Terrorism and tinted glass phobia

The country’s security gurus have not shown how many terrorists have been nabbed operating from vehicles with tinted glass

Who says that Boko Haram has not changed the lifestyle of Nigerians? That person should ask car owners, not only those that look tense when they are on a bridge or Nigerian Christians that are afraid to go to church on Sundays and their liberal Islamic counterparts who are no longer enthusiastic about going to pray in public mosques on Fridays. The latest group to ask this question is Nigerians who are now being harassed for using cars with tinted glass that engineers in other parts of the world manufactured after years of innovative thinking and research to save human skin from over exposure to sun rays. Managers of the country’s security need to be asked why they have unearthed a law created under military dictators under an elected government.

Terrorism is a major challenge for governments all over the world. It has led to creation of special agencies in some parts of the world. There was nothing like Homeland Security in the United States in the years before September 11, 2001. Since the creation of Homeland Security, millions of air travelers have learnt how to leave their belts at home to reduce the pain of going through security checks in all airports of the world. Even women obsessed with their femininity have had to live with small volume of face powder, small amount of perfume, and sometimes without toothpaste if they want to travel without hassles. It is therefore not strange that Nigeria’s security chiefs have gone into the archive of laws created during the era of military dictatorship, to fight the rise of Islamic terrorism in the country.

What is strange is that the archaeologists of military laws have not given citizens good reasons to believe that they are not just being capricious or arbitrary. No data have been provided to show any link between terrorist acts in the North and vehicles with tinted glass. Smokers did not have to complain about being prevented from carrying their matches or firelighters with them on the plane, after the experience of shoe bombers or the botched attempt of young Nigerian international terrorist to light the bomb under his underwear a few years ago. Air passengers all over the world who are lovers of peace and order have not complained about ordinances that forbid them to carry machetes, knives, and bows and arrows into aircrafts. The connection between these dangerous items and in-flight terrorism had been made clear to passengers and non-passengers.

What has not been made clear to Nigerians is the connection between tinted glass on the two rear sides of cars and the killing of innocent people by Boko Haram bombing of the UN office in Abuja, churches, motor parks, and police stations. The country’s security gurus have not shown how many terrorists have been nabbed operating from vehicles with tinted glass. They also have not shown citizens, particularly car owners how many explosive devices have been recovered by police from cars with tinted glass. Innocent citizens in their millions need to be told how many guns have been shot and how many bombs have been thrown from moving cars with tinted glass since the emergence of Boko Haram. It is necessary for the police to use data obtained from such heinous crimes to enlist the support of innocent Nigerians who had taken loans to buy cars with tinted glass made by their manufacturers abroad.

Reports have indicated that Islamic terrorists had thrown bombs from motor cycles while some had shot innocent citizens from moving bicycles. Is the change in our security protocols going to ban motorcycles and bicycles? Nigerians have been told that Boko Haram bombers have used empty houses and occupied houses to store explosive devices and powerful assault guns. What is the attitude of the Inspector-General of Police to thousands of such houses in the north and south of the country, board them up? Invoking an obsolete law in the books against owners of cars with tinted glass is reminiscent of erecting road blocks as a means of fighting crimes. It is obsolete and may be counterproductive.

In a war that requires cooperation of civilian population, policymakers in the security sector need to know how to cultivate citizens. They should not create policies that anger or antagonize citizens unnecessarily. Asking car owners to obtain special permit for using cars that they had duly registered and for which they had paid duties to Customs is similar to punishing or blaming the victim. Anyone that drives an unregistered car in the country has committed a punishable crime. It should not be criminal for citizens who have paid customs on their vehicles and paid for registration with their local government or the Federal Road Safety Commission to use those vehicles. It should be safely assumed by citizens that Customs department, FRSC, and the NPF are interlinked and are agencies that share common interest in the country’s security.

In the fight against Boko Haram, our rulers need to learn from good policies and practices in other countries that have security challenges from Islamic terrorists or any other category of terrorists: Ensure that cars do not carry tinted glass that is in excess of what is allowed in other parts of the world and ensure that security officers are given gadgets that can see through tinted glass from a distance. It will be less expensive for the federal government to acquire such devices than to have to respond to litigation seeking refund of huge sums of money to citizens who own duly registered vehicles. It is worth stressing that when the law being excavated by the police was made, it was to give special protection to military governments without mandate to rule. Even in those days when civilians were prevented from buying cars with green and jet black colors, and owning cars with tinted glass, military rulers were exempted from the rule, an indication that the law was not to fight crime but to accentuate privileges of new class of rulers.

Thomas Paine and David Thoreau at different times had warned makers of bad and oppressive laws about the danger in making such laws. They had argued that human beings have the capacity to resist or disobey unjust laws. The National Assembly should not engage in panel beating an unjust and unreasonable law inherited from decades of military dictatorship. What senators need to do is to jettison the law against the use of cars with tinted glass, not to ignore attempts by the police to make citizens pay twice for the same product.

•This piece is being republished after observing that policemen and women are back to harass car owners on highways for driving cars with tinted glass and without proper permit to use such cars, weeks after declaration of emergency and deployment of full military action that have been reported to be ridding the country of Islamic terrorists by the day.

2 thoughts on “Terrorism and tinted glass phobia”

NICE PIECE, I JUST READ THROUGH IT. HOW MANY OF THESE SO CALLED LAWMAKERS ” LAW BREAKERS” HAVE THE TIME TO GO ONLINE IN OTHER TO GET CITIZENS REACTION. THE MAJOR PROBLEM WITH GOVERNMENT IS THAT “THEY ACT BEFORE THEY THINK”
MAY GOD HELP US